Rotary continues to closely monitor the latest developments surrounding the Ebola outbreak, and work with the World Health Organization, UNICEF, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and other partners to respond to both polio and Ebola. Fighting disease is a priority of our members, who have organized countless projects around the world aimed at educating and mobilizing communities to prevent the spread of major diseases such as polio, HIV/AIDS, and malaria.

While our response to Ebola continues to evolve, much has already been accomplished:

Rotarians will help improve the delivery of vital health care services to West Africa through a new strategic partnership between The Rotary Foundation and the global charity Mercy Ships.

Through the partnership, the Foundation will offer packaged global grants for Rotary clubs and districts to assemble vocational training teams of medical professionals. These teams will perform or assist in life-changing surgeries. The Rotarian volunteers will also work to enhance the skills of local health care professionals.

Dakar/Brazzaville, 4 March 2010 - More
than 85 million children under five years old will be immunized against
polio in 19 countries across West and Central Africa in a massive example
of cross-border cooperation aimed at stopping a year-long polio epidemic.

Nine countries in West and Central Africa
- Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, Guinea, Liberia, Mali, Mauritania, Senegal
and Sierra Leone - are considered to have active outbreaks of polio (i.e.
cases within the last six months).

Dakar/Harare, 28 May 2009 - More
than 400,000 polio vaccinators in 11 West African countries will immunize
more than 74 million children over the next week in response to a spreading
polio epidemic which is threatening thousands of children with life-long
paralysis.

In the small border town of Jendemah,
Sierra Leone, Richelieu Allison is known as "the peace hut guy."

It's a title he's earned: Months of weather
delays, poor road conditions, building material shortages, and even a snake
bite haven't kept Allison from constructing a peace hut for this community
of 10,000.

Now the focal point of a special park,
the palaver hut was built with help from the Rotary Club of Freetown, Sierra
Leone, and The Rotary Foundation.